Ireland’s capital is navigable, accessible, and it’s true what they say about the locals. Johnny almost felt guilty that they got trounced in the Six Nations.

That’s the Guinness Six Nations rugby tournament. The black stuff featured large during our weekend break, so much so that Juanita and I ended up watching the crunch England v Ireland match over a cup of tea in the hotel lobby.

The first taste came during our tour of the Guinness Storehouse at St James Gate. Having declined all the added extras — the personalised beer glasses, your selfie tantalisingly dribbled onto the white head — we made our way up the impressive circular tower while learning, via the obligatory son et lumière, how the stout is made. The humans who did talk to us knew their stuff but, when it came to tasting it, I took exception to some teenager’s encouragement to ‘gulp, don’t sip’. Well derr.

We did get a ‘free’ pint at the circular Gravity Bar, though. That was lovely.

Booze turned out to be an important feature of our visit. Access, apart from the flights (see below) was not. Buy a Leap card at the Airport Spar for big, big savings on buses and trams. Perhaps I should have brought my Freewheel to deal with the cobbles of Temple Bar, wherein it took us several visits to find the eponymous watering hole. Every damn one of them seems to be called Temple Bar.

Anyway, back to the drinking. With the yeasty goodness of Guinness still on the sides of my tongue, at the TB I favoured a double Jamesons on ice with (an inspired move, this) a glass of water on the side. All the taste, none of the headaches.

The best pub we visited surely was the Doheny & Nesbitt on Baggot Street, where we joined a rowdy croud about to enjoy France v Wales. It’s the people, so it is. Just a couple of pints there.

Spread over four days this consumption doesn’t add up to much, I know, but I’m an old man trying like hell to avoid a hangover. These days, one of those would write off half the vsit.

And it wasn’t all drink, nossir! We did galleries and museums, and saw two shows; Blood Brothers at the striking Bord Gais theatre in the Docklands area and The Lieutenant of Inishmore at the famous Gaiety on South King Street. The two plays couldn’t have been more different but, faced with a choice, I’d go for the dark, dark humour of the latter. Love that dismemberment scene.

We overheard lots of languages, including a fair bit of Gaelic, and met some friendly folk. The staff at our hotel, the Maldron on Pearse Street, couldn’t have been more helpful. Aer Lingus, on the other hand, perhaps should. I had to fight my case for an accessible seat and on both sectors, despite waiting patiently to disembark after everyone else, they took ages to locate my chair. Just like in the 80s.